Following positive feedback on the treatment I created for ‘Why Do We Look Up?’, I decided to go ahead and start on production. The first thing I needed to sort, and the element of the film that could logistically be the most difficult, was conducting interviews with local amateur astronomers.
I decided to reach out to Cornwall Astronomical Society. I sent them an email and they agreed to let me film and interview some willing members of their club. I went along to one of their meetings, sat through a very informative talk about the stars by the chairman and then began the interviews. I didn’t want to bring along lots of equipment, i.e boom mic and lights, as I wanted to keep them feeling as comfortable and casual as possible. While this worked very effectively at making the people I was interviewing feel more comfortable, and therefore allowed me to have more open and interesting conversations with them, it did raise some issues.
The lighting at the venue was a real issue, and as a result, the footage of the interviews turned out far darker than I had hoped. I am hoping that I may be able to fix some of these issues in Adobe Lightroom, but I am also preparing for the possibility of not being able to use the footage in the film and just using the audio as I want the film to look as professional as possible.
The interviews themselves were very successful. The astronomers had fantastic answers to the title question, providing thought-provoking insights that I hadn’t yet considered myself. I believe the discussions we had can link into all four themes; Humanity, Change, Future & Fantasy. I am excited to start editing it all together. This was the first time I had ever set up and conducted interviews, and found I learned a great deal from the experience.
PCA Isobel Wilkinson - BA Film 